


the war is (not) won

by absopositivelutely



Series: make this chaos count [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes-centric, Character Study, Gen, Stucky if you squint, i love bucky okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-18 02:46:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13672644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absopositivelutely/pseuds/absopositivelutely
Summary: sometimes he remembers he is more than just a weapon.sometimes he forgets he is just another human.(or; memory returns slowly)





	1. half full

 

* * *

 

show me where my armor ends; show me where my skin begins.

 _— pluto_ _,_  sleeping at last

 

* * *

 

**i.**

 

This first time does not count as much. It was only halfway to the edge. That does not make it much better. They say the first time is the worst, though that is only partially true. It is, by far, the worst thing he has gone through so far. He cannot imagine anything worse than this. The pain is everywhere, burning at the edges of his mind and stabbing into his chest, waves rushing over his head, fire and fire and more fire and _it won’t stop, Bucky, it hurts! It’ll be okay, Stevie, c’mon—_

 

It occurs to him that he does not know who Steve is.

 

“Bucky!”

 

He does not register who the voice is calling for. “Sergeant,” he whispers to himself. It is the only thing holding him back from the edge. “32557...038.” A soldier’s last resort.

 

“Bucky! It’s me!”

 

There is light, suddenly. “Bucky, oh my god,” Steve gasps, breath hot on his face and hands gripping his shoulders.

 

Steve’s fingers fumble with the belts holding Bucky to the table. “Hey. It’s me. It’s Steve.”

 

 _New York,_ he places the accent. _Brooklyn. Home._ The apartment he shared with Steve, before he’d left for the war. _The war._ He’d left him. _Cigarettes. Sketchbooks. Sunsets._

 

_Steve._

 

 _Another hallucination,_ he thinks, but it feels so real. “Stop,” he pleads hoarsely. He is already at the mercy of the scientist he does not know the name of. They don’t need to make it worse. “I know it’s not real.”

 

“Come on, Buck,” Steve says, softly, a deep sadness in his eyes, and Bucky is standing and Steve’s arm is around him and he remembers Steve being a lot smaller than this—it _can’t_ be him—but those are the same blue eyes that had the sky trapped in them and this is Steve, it has to be him, and even if it wasn’t real maybe this was the end.

 

Later, when Steve asks him what they did to him, Bucky shrugs and says he doesn’t really remember. Steve thinks this just means Bucky doesn’t want to talk about it. What scares Bucky is that he’s telling the truth.

 

There is an abyss in his mind. He cannot go too close to the edge. The wind whips at his face furiously and burns his eyes when he stands at the precipice. _Good morning, Soldier,_ it whispers.

 

Sometimes he wakes up and he cannot breathe. Steve tries to comfort him, but he does not remember who Steve is.

 

He always does eventually, at least.

 

**ii.**

 

He hated the cold. Not so much for the same reasons everyone else did. Bucky always ran a warm temperature, anyway.

 

No, he hated the cold because of what it did to Steve. He remembers one winter—their first winter alone in that apartment. Bucky had a small sniffle, probably caught from Steve’s perpetual colds. Snow was falling outside. And Steve was dying.

 

They didn’t have enough money for medicine. His coughs seemed like they would break him. Bucky went days without food and forced Steve to eat everything he could get. He piled two ragged blankets on Steve and sat up next to him all night and held Steve’s rosary in his hands and Bucky was not religious, but he prayed those nights when Steve lay almost unmoving, skin pale and fragile and cold.

 

Cold was when Steve always got worse. Cold was when Bucky had to trudge through that storm to get Steve some food. Cold was when Bucky went without blankets so Steve wouldn’t shiver himself to death or something. Cold was worry and fear and _I can’t lose him_.

 

The cold was piercing. He could not feel anything. Perhaps it was for the better. He did not feel their needles and scalpels cutting into him, shaping him into their weapon.  

 

The Winter Soldier wakes up cold. It should not matter to him; it is the mission that matters. He steps into the snow without hesitation. _Complete the mission, Sergeant._

 

He pauses when there is the whistle of a train, roaring down the track far above them and echoing through the valley. There is a familiar chasm in his mind, wind howling angrily. It pushes him away when he thinks too much about the train. It does the same when he realizes he doesn’t much like the cold. He wonders why.

 

He keeps moving forward, though. _Complete the mission._

 

**iii.**

 

He remembers. He remembers, oh god, he remembers it all. He does not know what is worse—not knowing the crimes he has committed, or this. No. This was worse. He remembers, yes, but that does not change anything. He still has to fight. Still has to kill. They will wipe him again if they find out, that is certain. And this was—oh god, why now?

 

How was he supposed to complete the mission, when the file he held in his hand was labeled _Margaret Carter_ and there was her picture, red lipstick and all; how was he supposed to fulfill his orders when they wanted red on his hands—and it wouldn’t be lipstick, the Winter Soldier, James Buchanan Barnes, _Bucky_ knows—how was he supposed to keep doing this?

 

He does not have to worry, it turns out. They wipe him regardless. He is ripped apart and he is sickeningly grateful, because he will not remember having to do this. _I’m sorry,_ he thinks, and then there is a white-hot flash and a long, keening cry that he faintly registers is his voice, and then there is nothing.

 

It is the first mission that the Winter Soldier fails to complete.

 

They never send him on that mission again. He suspects that maybe, they gave up on her. Decided she was too hard to eliminate, perhaps. Or that there were other, more dangerous targets to deal with. He only hears whispers of it.

 

He does not know why—he does not even know her—but there is an unexplainable, overwhelming sense of relief when he hears this.

 

**iv.**

 

 _The Red Room,_ they had called it. “красная комната,” he whispers to himself, tasting the unfamiliar words. He knows the language well, though maybe not in the way you might think. It is a language of harsh syllables and sharp edges, and it is with that roughness that he has come to know Russian. He knows words like _mission_ and _fight_ and _kill_. He does not know how to speak to people; has never needed to or been allowed to. It seems as though he will have to now.

 

They are just children. Their slight frames and wide-eyed faces tug at a string in his chest, one that feels like a remnant of a past life. He ignores it. They are anything but innocent, he knows. But there is an irresistible urge to protect them, like he’d protected—

 

He does not remember his next thought.

 

“Зимний солдат,” one of the girls speaks up suddenly. _Winter Soldier._ He looks up to see her watching him with a conflicted expression twisting her features. Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest, and though her weight is rested on one leg, maintaining a casual position, there's a tenseness to her body like that of a coiled snake preparing to strike, a certain cautiousness to her stance and a heaviness on her shoulders that other girls her age don't carry. But then, she isn't really normal; nobody in this room is, the soldier knows that for sure. “That’s what they call you, right?”

 

Every pair of eyes is trained on him. He nods once, hoping he understood her correctly. “And—and you?”

 

“Romanova,” she replies. Her eyes are piercingly green, like a cat's, almost, bright and vivid and unnervingly perceptive. He looks down uncomfortably from her searching gaze. “Your Russian needs some work.”

 

The Winter Soldier is surrounded by laughter, and he finds himself cracking a smile. It feels almost more foreign than the Russian on his lips.

 

**v.**

 

There is a certain elegance to it, how she slices at him with an outstretched hand and he steps to the side, light on his feet; how he makes an attempt at a spinning kick and she ducks under it, and he lands after the kick and pivots to throw a punch; how they exchange attacks and feints and dodges, never stopping, always moving smoothly, a never-ending dance of death. There is a fierce grin and an almost savage joy in her victory, and an odd warmth rises in his chest. Perhaps he was like this, once. Had he always been good at fighting? He had to be. Fighting was his language. It ran through his veins the same way Russian flowed easily from her  tongue.

 

She is staring at him expectantly. He does not know what she has asked him.

 

“Sorry,” he says softly. “What?”

 

She corrects his pronunciation with a smile and then says, “I won. _Now_ do I get to know your name? You know mine.”

 

“It isn’t that simple, Romanova,” he argues, and she rolls her eyes in such a teenage display of annoyance he almost smiles. Then he wonders when he came to associate that behavior with a teenager. He does not ever remember meeting one until the Red Room.

 

“I told you, my name is Natalia Alianovna Romanova. Not just Romanova. I don’t like Romanova, anyway, it’s what _they_ call me. I won, at least give me this,” she insists, eyes wide and earnest. _Blue eyes and a small, pleading voice and_ fine, don’t give me those damn puppy eyes _and—_

 

“Okay. Natalia,” he amends, shaking off the sudden rush of— _were those memories?_ —“It’s still not that simple.”

 

“But why—”

 

“I don’t know,” he cuts in, voice hard and quiet with an emotion he cannot describe. He lets out a long breath and buries his head in his hands, the cool metal on the left warring with the warmth from his right hand, and it only serves to remind him that as much as she makes him feel almost normal, he is not. He does not have a name. He is not human, like she is. Like they all are. People know who they are; they know where they came from and what they have done and who they have loved. He does not know any of those things, despite the flashes of memory that come few and far between. Any more than that and they will strip him of it all again; tearing outwards from his head with a viciousness unparalleled by anyone he's ever fought.

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her face blurred by hot tears he did not realize he was crying. He wipes them away and shakes his head. She has nothing to be sorry for. But he can tell she’s made up her mind. Her jaw is set and her eyes are dark and serious and she is ferocious and determined when she promises him, “I’ll help you. They can’t do that to you.”

 

Later, in the middle of the night, his door creaks open and she slips into his room. Her face is illuminated by moonlight filtering through the small window high above their heads, revealing a bruise blossoming across her cheek. Yet her grin is fierce and she hands him a file, blood dried on her knuckles but a savage joy in her eyes.

 

“James Buchanan Barnes,” she breathes, and he stares at her with wide eyes, earth and sky meeting in their shared gaze.

 

**vi.**

 

“Don’t touch her.”

 

He speaks up from where he stands in the back of the room, arms crossed and tensed muscles sharply defined. His voice is low and rough and he hopes they cannot hear it shaking. Natalia’s eyes lock on his and he can see the fear she’s been holding back so desperately. The instructor standing in front of her clears her throat, and Natalia looks evenly at her, face devoid of all emotion. But he knows her; knows how to read the stiffness in her shoulders and the quiver in her lip and the clenching of her fists. She is terrified, and frankly, so is he.

 

“ _What_ did you say?” the woman bites out. The Winter— _James_ , he corrects himself. James swallows hard and his good hand subconsciously grips his metal shoulder.

 

“Don’t touch her. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

 

The woman’s eyes narrow. “Have you not been listening? She has not been focusing like she used to. She is defiant. We cannot tolerate that.”

 

There is a long silence.

 

“It’s my fault,” he admits softly, a second before Natalia screams, “James, _don’t!_ ”

 

Natalia will remember James, he hopes. At least one person in this world would know him as more than just a soldier, even if he himself did not.

 

It is what he tells himself to hold back the screams. It does not work.

 

**vii.**

 

 _Howard Stark,_ he remembers. That was the man’s name. Stark had called him Barnes. It stirs something in him that he cannot place.

 

_Barnes? Please, what are you doing?_

 

He had been so afraid.

 

**viii.**

 

“James, _don’t!_ ”

 

The scream is so familiar he hesitates. The redheaded woman scrambles to protect his target. She leaves him no choice.

 

He shoots her through the stomach. _Target eliminated._

 

Her green eyes are desperate and fearful. He knew her, once.

  

**ix.**

 

He is not sure how, but he knows his opponent, and his opponent knows him. Somehow the other man knows just when the Winter Soldier is about to plunge his knife into his neck, and it is wrested from his hands. The shield feels right in the soldier’s hands, like he’s held it before, and he throws it to the side with ease. They exchange punches and he darts nimbly to the side and he sidesteps his kick and there is a certain elegance in the way they move in response to each other, a synchronized dance in which they never touch, and it is like they are meant to fit together but never quite make it.

 

And then they do.

 

“Bucky?”

 

The man’s voice cracks and there is a painful hope swelling behind his words; it is too good to be true, is what it sounds like he wants to say. The world stops around them.

 

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

 

The name is reminiscent of an age of dancing and alcohol and cigarettes and lipstick and women and streetlights and narrow roads and creaking stairs and small apartments; an era that the Winter Soldier has only heard of in passing, but there is a vivid picture that is painted in his mind. The only word he can describe it as is _home._

 

 _Steven Grant Rogers,_ he has written on the paper in front of him. It is a subconscious action. He tries to remember when he wrote it. He thinks it was when the doctors came into the room, the familiar sharp scent of antiseptic filling the air. _Hospital smell,_ a small voice in his head complains. It sounds like the voice of the man he had fought, albeit a younger and more innocent voice, but the same person nonetheless.

 

He scratches a line through the name and writes out _James Buchanan Barnes_ under it. _Bucky._

 

“The man on the bridge, who was he?” he asks.

 

“You met him this week on another assignment,” Alexander Pierce answers dismissively. “I said mission report, soldier.”

 

“I knew him,” the not-quite-Winter-Soldier insists. Pierce’s eyes narrow, and he snaps his fingers. The doctors are immediately at his side, reaching out with their gloved hands. He finds that he cannot move from the chair he is lying in. He remembers, suddenly, that he did not like _hospital smell_ very much. It reminds him of death.

 

**x.**

 

“Please don’t make me do this,” the man says, standing across from the Winter Soldier. But he can see the tension in his opponent’s body, how he holds himself turned slightly sideways to more easily access his shield. The Winter Soldier does not respond. There is an incomprehensible sadness in the blonde’s eyes when he pulls the shield from his back.

 

He does not remember much of their fight. He does not want to. He lets his body take over, lets the memory of his muscles drive him forward. It is the only memory he has left, except for an unshakable feeling that this fight should not happen. When he is trapped under the debris of the falling Helicarrier, he decides that this was the cause of his intuition. This will be how he dies.

 

And then there is light shining from a gap in the debris and there is warm breath on his face and hands tugging on his shoulders. “I’m not gonna fight you,” the man says. His name is Steve, though the soldier is not sure how he knows that. “You’re my friend.”

 

He does not know how to react. All he knows is that he has to eliminate the target, regardless of the cost. “You’re my mission,” he growls out from between clenched teeth. His fist connects with his opponent’s face, which seems almost to accept the punch. It is infuriating. “You’re...my...mission!”

 

"Then finish it.” The words fall from lips dripping with blood. He cracks open an eye to reveal the sky hidden behind golden rays of eyelashes. “ 'Cause I'm with you...to the end of the line.”

 

The Winter Soldier stops, and the world falls beneath their feet.

 

He surfaces from the water with Steve in his arms. He does not know why he saves him when Steve is the target. But it feels _right,_ and maybe he was wrong about his mission.

 

Or he was right, and _Steve_ was his mission. You see, he has never had a mission where elimination is not the goal. Perhaps this mission was different.

 

“Bucky,” Steve had murmured. It rolls from his tongue the same way words like _mission_ and _fight_ and _kill_ do. Like it is the only word he knows.

 

His name is Bucky. It has to be. It is the only thing he is certain of in this world.


	2. half empty

 

* * *

 

 

if brokenness is a form of art, surely this must be my masterpiece.

 _— neptune_ _,_  sleeping at last

 

 

* * *

  

**i.**

 

 _James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes_ . He mouths the words in the shadow of his baseball cap, lifts a tentative hand to touch the glass display that had his face emblazoned across it—the James Buchanan Barnes in the picture is young and innocent and happy, but unmistakably him. There is a fierce determination in picture-Bucky’s eyes that the Winter Soldier (he is not sure what to call himself, because _the Winter Soldier_ does not feel quite right anymore) recognizes in his own, though his reflection is darker and twisted but the same nonetheless.

 

He had four siblings. He lived in Brooklyn. He enlisted in the army. He served in the Howling Commandos. He had met Steven Grant Rogers when they were kids. It reads like a textbook, dry and matter-of-fact. They do not sit well in him—he enlisted? They had to be wrong about that. Bucky never wanted to fight, he is sure of that. But what scares him is that perhaps this museum knows more about him than he does.

 

One thing he knows for sure: saving Steve was not a choice. It was wired into him the way killing was stamped into his soul. The museum managed to get that right, at least.

 

**ii.**

 

“Please,” he whispers, “please, _stop._ ”

 

The doctors surrounding him in bright sterile white disappear, and he is left alone in the dilapidated building with his metal hand clamped around his other wrist, fingers searching for a tube under his skin that has not been there for so long. He had never thought much of the IV drip they had always attached to him, but god he would give _anything_ for five minutes in a HYDRA facility, hell, even become the Winter Soldier again, take down another target, _anything at all_ that would stop the pain—

 

He inhales a shaky breath, curls up on the cool cement floor, holds back his shuddering sobs, and waits for it to pass.

 

Or would he die like this; alone, forgotten?

 

He grips the metal bar he’d found on the ground so tightly it bends. He is a fighter, and he will not let HYDRA stop him. Never again.

 

Bucky Barnes pushes himself to his feet. He was never one to leave things unfinished.

 

**iii.**

 

It is the first time he has felt lost. He has always had a mission: to protect Steve when they were little, to follow orders in the army, to kill for HYDRA. But this was Bucky Barnes, living only for himself, and he did not expect how helpless he would feel.

 

And how was he supposed to live for himself when he did not know who he was?

 

He sometimes wishes, as sickening as it is, that he was the Winter Soldier again—wearing a ~~mask~~ muzzle, vest strapped tightly across his chest, a handler barking out orders—it is awful, but at least he had a purpose. He does not have a purpose anymore. It is not like anyone would care if he was gone. Maybe Steve would, for a bit. But Steve has not needed him for decades. And perhaps Bucky was better off dead, anyway. He is sure that Steve has seen the displays in the Smithsonian, and it is a stranger who shares his name and face that stands next to Captain America. _That_ is the Bucky that Steve mourns.

 

Because Bucky Barnes does not remember laughing.

 

He shakes his head and clips the strap of his backpack across his chest. It is an odd sort of comfort it brings him—it is reminiscent of the holster that held his weapons, replacing the phantom tightness he sometimes felt as if it were a missing watch.

 

**iv.**

 

He should really leave.

 

He should not be here, in New York, standing on the fire escape of an apartment he knows so well but really knows nothing about at all. This was not the New York he had pieced together from the fragments he’d gathered. This was a New York that had moved on from Bucky and from Steve, had mourned the men it lost and grew in their absence. Ironically, their apartment—well. He thinks it’s theirs. Why else would it feel like he was finally home?—was abandoned.

 

He supposes that maybe this was the only place that remembers. Everything is unmoved, as if their belongings were waiting for them to return from the war. There was nobody else who would wait, after all.

 

There is a sense of finality in this building, and though he could easily get inside, it does not feel right. The last people who had walked these floors were Steve and Bucky. And he is Bucky, he has claimed that name, but he is certainly not the boy who had lived here and grown here and learned to love here. It was as if he would break the spell, because here, amidst the dust and cobwebs, he could almost see the ghost of his former self laughing and leaning against an open window, city air ruffling the hair on the back of his neck, Steve sitting cross-legged on the bed and smiling up at him, and if Bucky steps into the space between them they will never look at each other again.

 

He does not belong here. This was for Steve and Bucky, not Captain America and the Winter Soldier. He is still that assassin, as much as he wants to deny it. Bucky shakes his head and clenches a metal fist and vaults over the side of the fire escape, tucking into a roll and coming up smoothly. It is a move he has done many times before without thought. It does not occur to him that it would draw attention. You see, he has never _not_ been on a mission.

 

But draw attention it does. “Son? Son, are you alright?” The old man’s voice is worn by time, exhausted and slow but still carrying that warmth that he remembers the old man down the hall had. This is a different man, of course, but _god_ it sounds _just_ like Mister Williams who had taught Bucky how to smoke and laughed at his own bad jokes and saved a cookie for Steve whenever he went down the the bakery—fragments of thoughts fall into place and his fingers itch to write them down. He is afraid of letting anything escape him anymore.

 

“I’m fine.” He cannot look him in the eye, does not want to realize that this is not Mister Williams and he is not a teenaged Bucky anymore. His answer comes out low and scratchy and the man snorts in response.

 

“I just saw you jump off a fire escape and land perfectly. I don’t mean my question physically.” The man steps closer and Bucky glances up briefly, and they lock eyes for a split second. “You remind me of a friend I had long ago, you know. He was always reckless, too. He did it to protect his best friend—they were more like brothers, really. They got real famous later on, but I like to remember them as the boys I played with. I get the feeling you’re protecting just yourself, though.”

 

Bucky nods slowly, tugging his sleeve further down his left arm. “Your friend, what was his name?”

 

“Bucky. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. The Howling Commando? You look like him, too. Huh. Wonder if this is what he’d look like if he came back home. I used to wonder what happened to him after he got drafted,” the man muses. “Didn’t know that, did you?” he asks, upon noticing Bucky’s mouth open to speak. “Yeah, he got drafted. I remember he told Steve he enlisted, though. Always wanted to look strong, that one. He was scared shitless the night before. We went out, had a couple drinks, picked up a dame—it was all distraction, though. He cried in the back alley. Made me promise not to tell anyone—all _Davy, swear it on your life_ —anyways, sorry to bother you, son. You’ve probably got places to be.”

 

“No, it’s fine,” Bucky says, after a surprised pause. “Thank you.”

 

“You looked like you needed someone to talk to you.” His expression is wistful, the lines etched by the years deepening at the corners of his eyes when he smiles a smile filled with regret. “I wish I’d been there for Steve when Buck left. Maybe then he wouldn’t have gone off to let them do whatever they did to him, you know? Makes me wonder if maybe the Howling Commandos wouldn’t have happened, and Bucky would be alive—or maybe he’d still be dead, but he’d be forgotten too. After word got out what happened to them I promised myself I’d try to help out anyone who looked like they needed someone to talk to. So thank you too, kid.”

 

Bucky leaves feeling surprisingly light. There is a peculiar tugging deep in his chest when he sees the whole of New York beneath him through the cool glass of the airplane window. That man—Davy, he remembers—had known Bucky Barnes. There had been a James Buchanan Barnes outside of the heroic display the Smithsonian had up, there had been a Bucky who had lived here in Brooklyn, was _real_ and remembered as more than just Captain America’s best friend who had died tragically. He had friends and a story and Bucky _knows_ that this is where he belongs, but right now he is not the Bucky Barnes that Brooklyn remembers. He will come back, though. That he can promise.

 

**v.**

 

The apartment feels empty, no matter what he does. Brooklyn’s apartment had been sparsely furnished, more so than this one, but he cannot reconcile _Bucharest_ and _home_ in his mind. He remembers an unmistakable sense of _home,_ one that he cannot quite seem to find here. _Home_ was in the pages of his notebook that were inscribed with broken snippets of conversation that find their way into his mind late at night, under almost too warm blankets that he had an inexplicable instinct to buy. Because survival was ingrained into his mind, from years of fighting another’s illness that he does not remember.

 

 _“Thank you, Buck, but I can get by on my own.” — the other man/boy (definitely a boy he’s_ _so small_ _), blonde,_ _Steve_ _._

 

_“Thing is...you don’t have to.” — me, I think, except I sound sure of myself. Like I’m not broken up inside._

 

_And I don’t know what it is but his eyes are the brightest blue I have ever seen and there’s a look in them that makes me want to cry._

 

 _“_ _I’m with you to the end of the line._ _” — me. Steve said this too—maybe it_ _is_ _real._

 

He tucks the notebook into his backpack and slips it under the floorboards. It is too precious for him to leave it in the open.

 

**vi.**

 

It has been two years since he has last been under control by HYDRA, but that does not mean that Bucky Barnes has forgotten the Winter Soldier. He still carries a knife with him everywhere, still glances over his shoulder and pulls his cap lower when he walks down the street, still varies his route home every day. He is still afraid.

 

And it has not been in vain, because he knew this would happen. He knew they would find him eventually. But he thought that by the time they caught up to him, he would be ready for them.

 

The newspaper in his hands reads “ _Winter Soldier cautat pentru Bombardamentul din Viena,_ ” and he knows they have found him, and he is not ready.

 

He fully expects someone to be waiting for him when he gets home. What stops him in his tracks is _who_ is waiting for him. Because this man is a figure that appears so often in the scraps of memories Bucky has recovered, so familiar that Bucky recognizes him from behind yet so distant that he does not know what to say.

 

Steve slowly puts down the notebook on top of the fridge, and Bucky involuntarily tenses upon seeing that he is holding his notebook, the one that holds Bucky at his most vulnerable. Steve _can’t_ see what’s in there. He wants to act, but he cannot bring himself to move. Instead he remains frozen as Steve turns slowly, his eyes flickering up from the floor to make tentative eye contact with Bucky. And Bucky thinks it surprises them both, just how familiar this is. Because something deep in his soul knows these sky blue eyes, can separate the anxiety and fear and hope warring in Steve’s gaze. Bucky has a feeling Steve can read him just as easily. “Do you know me?” Steve’s voice is low and soft like he is edging towards a wounded animal, which Bucky supposes is not completely false.

 

“You’re Steve,” he replies after a long pause. “I read about you in a museum.” It is a transparent lie, but he remembers what happened the last time he insisted he knew Steve. He will not make that mistake again.

 

“I know you’re nervous,” Steve says, and Bucky can sense the thinly-veiled attempt to placate him. “And you have plenty of reason to be. But you’re lying.”

 

Bucky’s eyes narrow. This was cruel. Steve steps back into his life only to accuse him of something he didn’t do. “I wasn’t in Vienna. I don’t do that anymore.”

 

And apparently Steve will always continue to surprise him, because Steve nods and straightens up and there is a shift in the way he carries himself that Bucky’s assassin-mind picks up on and he knows that Steve believes him immediately. “Well, the people who think you did are coming here now. And they're not planning on taking you alive.”

 

Bucky nods once, almost flippantly. Steve’s concern and his unwavering loyalty is touching, but he doesn’t deserve it. “That’s smart. Good strategy.” And for a second, when he hears the thump of footsteps across the roof, he really does consider it, just letting them take what they came here for.

 

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck,” Steve pleads. It is useless and they both know it. Bucky’s soul is that of a fighter’s, and if he isn’t going down easily, he refuses to go down at all.

 

“It always ends in a fight,” he answers, and from the way Steve’s jaw sets it seems that he’s come to that conclusion too.

 

“You pulled me from the river,” Steve says, changing tactics. “Why?”

 

He glares at the blonde. This was _not_ the time to discuss something he himself was not entirely sure of. He hadn’t known who exactly Steve was back then. He still isn’t completely certain. “I don’t know,” he growls, clenching his fists and taking a step back.

 

“Yes you do,” Steve replies almost immediately. The sureness in his voice is almost sickening. He would comment on it if it weren’t for the grenade that launches itself through the window. Bucky kicks it almost instinctively at Steve, who smothers it with his shield. Policemen burst in seconds after the grenade, and Bucky slams one into the wall, eyes squeezing shut and breaths coming fast and heavy. _Not again._ He lets go of the policeman, who falls to the ground, unconscious but _alive, thank god._

 

“Bucky stop! You’re going to kill someone!” Steve yells at him over the commotion, and he could almost laugh. That is the one thing he’s reclaimed from Bucky Barnes, the one thing he’s left with the Winter Soldier. He would not kill. He would not add one more face, one more name to the parade of the dead that lives on in his mind. He sees them all every night.

 

“‘M not gonna kill anyone,” Bucky snaps, shoving Steve away from him and punching a hole into the floorboards. He hooks an arm through one of the straps of his bag and slings it across his back, stuffing the notebook that Steve had returned to the top of the fridge into one of the backpack’s pockets. Steve’s eyes follow his movements curiously, but he says nothing to question Bucky’s actions. Perhaps he already knows what is in those pages, or maybe he didn’t get enough time to read it. Either way, he is grateful he does not have to explain.

 

He has not fought in so long, and it has been so much longer since he has fought _alongside_ someone else. Bucky does not remember the last time he had someone to fall back on. But somehow, he can feel his muscles straining to move a certain way, to move with Steve. He resists it with everything he has, though. He can’t afford to fight. He is not Bucky Barnes and he is not the Winter Soldier anymore. He is alone in this fight—this is not Steve’s war, no matter how much Steve wants it to be—and god, he is _so afraid._

 

**vii.**

 

“Do you know where you are, James?”

 

He narrows his eyes at the man. His words are calm and soothing, but they put him on edge. There is something about him that screams danger. The man clears his throat upon receiving no response. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, James.”

 

“My name is Bucky.” He’ll give the man that much. Maybe it’s the name that’s giving him that uneasy feeling. But he has the sense that that’s not it.

 

The man nods, leaning forward intently. Bucky regrets his decision immediately. His interrogator’s eyes resemble that of a predator’s, eerily calm and focused. He recognizes it as the look in his eyes when he locks in on his target. What he would give to have his gun with him right now.

 

“Tell me, Bucky. You’ve seen a great deal, haven’t you?”

 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bucky responds lowly. He is afraid that—

 

“—if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop,” the man completes his thought smoothly. Bucky clenches his fists and strains against the cool metal cuffs around his wrists. Every instinct in him _screams_ danger. “Don’t worry. We only have to talk about one.”

 

It has been two years since he has last been under control by HYDRA, but that does not mean that Bucky Barnes has forgotten the Winter Soldier. And the Winter Soldier is ready to comply, whether or not Bucky is.

 

“Желание.” The man’s voice is low and cold and everything Bucky feared. He shuts his eyes and he feels his head snap back against the chair. His muscles tense against the restraints, and he is trembling with the strength he is using to hold himself back. He knows it will not last for long.

 

“No,” he whispers. His voice is small and broken and weak and he knows, _god_ he knows, that there is nothing he can do.

 

**viii.**

 

He faintly registers that it is Steve that carries him from the river. He blinks languidly, once, twice. Steve does not look down at him, but Bucky can see the furrow in his brow. He vaguely remembers that look as being one that he’s seen one too many times. There is no anger, no hesitation, no bitterness in his gaze. Steve pulls him from the water without thinking twice.

 

He wonders, briefly, before his eyes close again, if Steve does this for him the same way he had done it for Steve for the same reasons. Perhaps he was Steve’s mission, too.

 

**ix.**

 

“You ready?” Steve asks him, glancing sideways at him. No, he really isn’t. But Bucky Barnes has broken every promise he has ever made except this one. And Steve still looks at him with the same trust he had looked at him a lifetime ago on the doorstep of his apartment. This promise is one he has to keep.

 

This was the end of the line. He isn’t going down without a fight.

 

“Yeah,” he replies softly, his grip on the gun tightening. He sucks in a deep breath and forces himself to look up at Steve. For a second it reminds him of another man, blonde haired and blue eyed too. He does not know the man’s name, but he knows that he had stood here, just another HYDRA agent among those who had marched the Winter Soldier down this hall. Bucky drops his gaze to the floor, shutting his eyes tightly. When he opens them again he can almost see the blood splattered on the metal flooring. His blood. But that is not what ignites the fear that has lied dormant for years. Rather, it is the knowledge that he would much rather spill his blood than reach what awaited at the end of the hall.

 

He starts at the long, low, metallic creaking that rolls in from where they’d entered. He lifts his rifle, a familiar weight in his hands, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Steve raise his shield. He cannot breathe, not even after Tony and Steve exchange a handful of words and Tony insists that he isn’t there to fight him. Just another training exercise. If he fails this one, they will put him back in the chair. His chest is tight and he can feel his fingers trembling, knocking lightly against the trigger. He doesn’t catch the uneasy look Tony throws at him.

 

Steve motions for Bucky to lower his gun, and Bucky doesn’t know whether he lowers it because it’s Steve telling him to or because he recognizes an order from a superior officer.

 

He finds himself raising his gun again when they continue down the corridor. The doors looming at the end yawn wide open, almost beckoning them to come forward. Steve and Tony approach the entrance without hesitation, and Bucky has no choice but to follow them. Perhaps, in another place, he would’ve told Steve to stop being such a reckless punk, and Steve would smile and the comforting familiarity of the confirmed memory would settle in somewhere warm in his chest. But here, he can only follow wordlessly. There is a phantom muzzle holding him back from speaking.

 

The cavernous space beyond the doors is exactly as he remembers it. The lights flicker on as they enter the chamber, and though he sees Tony and Steve start and raise their weapons at the sudden brightness, his gaze is focused on the center of the room. Bright white fluorescent light floods the pit in the middle, illuminating a chair. The chair. _His_ chair.

 

His hands are cold as he rests the rifle on his shoulder, and he is all quick breaths and tensed muscles and widened eyes and pounding heart. He cannot look at it. He can already hear the words echoing in his mind.

 

**x.**

 

This is his choice, and that alone makes this so much easier than every other time he has stepped into a cryochamber, but that does not change the fact that he cannot help but remember every other time he has stepped into a cryochamber. This is his choice, but when he steps in there he will, once again, be completely at the mercy of someone else. This is his choice, but just like countless times before, he does not know where he is going to wake up, or when.

 

Steve trusts T’Challa, and so does he, but Bucky cannot deny that he is terrified, because history repeats itself. But it is different this time, he tells himself.

 

This is Bucky’s choice, and that is because he knows now that HYDRA’s Asset is part of him as much as Bucky, the kid from Brooklyn, was a part of him, as much as James Buchanan Barnes from the 107th was part of him, and as much as he’s tried to distance himself from the Winter Soldier, he _is_ the Winter Soldier. And after years of war raging in his mind, the war is won.

 

As much as it can be won. Because he is not sure if he will ever triumph over the fear that still haunts him.

 

He forces his breathing to slow and his muscles to relax and his eyes to close as the glass slides shut above him. Steve’s eyes are worried from the other side of the frosted glass, but he seems to have accepted Bucky’s decision. It was the best thing for everyone, like he’d said.

 

Except that wasn’t completely true.

 

He cannot quiet his pounding heart.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments always appreciated :)


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